


Giselle and Galatea's Tango

by Heblasoti



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24018097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heblasoti/pseuds/Heblasoti
Summary: Olympe Maxime, a young, attractive witch who is not afraid of owning her desires, comes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as an exchange student from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. Her pursuit of Eileen Prince started off as something for a little bit of fun, only to realise that it would become much more than that.
Relationships: Olympe Maxime/Eileen Prince





	Giselle and Galatea's Tango

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: typos, grammatical errors

“Dear Merlin!”

“What in the Merlin’s beard is going on?”

Rushed, hurried conversation and loud laughters echoed against the clouded sky and the tall-reaching stone walls of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The witches and the wizards who gather at the school walk past the big gates with their countless feelings, thoughts and stories hidden in their hearts. The dark cloak drapes over the mind and the body that contains the joyous laugh and unspoken secrets. The colours of the houses show proudly on the ties. It is proper manner to stand tall with the wand always close by. Students who walk slowly to keep their cloak clean, and those who ride their brooms without the fear of fall co-exist together.

  
  
  
  
  


#  **Giselle and Galatea's Tango**

# 

September 1946

  
  
  


If all you can see wherever you go is the top of the heads of other people because of your naturally, particularly tall height, things tend to get boring fairly quickly even if you are at a place full of eccentric, exceptional people. Heads, can’t really be that different from each other, perhaps with the exception of the colour of the hair. Eventually all heads will blend into the surrounding scenery, or so she thought until she saw the person sitting alone.

When Olympe first saw her, she did not think there were any special qualities to her. The person sitting on the threshold between girlhood and womanhood looked rather plain, to put it kindly, or pitiful to be more accurate. The dark hair that dangled just below the shoulders looked dry and lacked luster despite having been throughly combed, and the cheeks that ought to have glowed in the rosy light of the youth were pale and drained unlike her chronological age. If you add her dark, opaque eyes and the thin lips that hardly smile to the description of the girl’s appearance, even the most generous, kindest person in the world would struggle to call her attractive. In spite of all that, it was the very lack of youthful liveliness which captured the gaze of Olympe Maxime, while she walked the grounds of Hogwarts with her peers from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.

“Alors Olympe, est-ce que tu veux….”

To be honest, Olympe was not listening when her friend Genevieve tried to talk to her. The girl who sat alone with that ghastly look was drawing Olympe’s attention just like how a black hole might absorb the light around it into itself. Even then, Olympe could not help but come to her senses when her headmistress scolded her with a crossed voice.

“Ah, mademoiselle, did I not tell you to speak in English when you are at _‘Ogwarts?_ ” 

Olympe chuckled under her breath as she listened to Genevieve apologise, followed by her silent complaints. Olympe wholeheartedly sympathised with Genevieve’s frustration over having to speak in English when French was a perfectly fine mother tongue, but she also found it cute that Genevieve insisted on speaking in French despite always being told off by Madam Constante every, single, time.

“Well, we are here as exchange students, so it will be good to use this opportunity to perfect our English skills. The students who come to Beauxbatons will also need to speak in French anyway. So it’s fair, no?”

Olympe bent down to whisper to Genevieve, who complained about the absence of boys who look cute enough to bother speaking in English. Olympe tried her best to stop herself from bursting into laughter, but a smile escaped and spread widely upon her lips. As Olympe straightened herself again, she found herself locking her gaze with the person she had been watching until a moment ago. Unlike her pale skin, the dark pair of eyes were quite intense. Olympe was used to being the centre of the attention, but none were like hers.

  
  
  


* * *

The first image Olympe thought of when she arrived at Hogwarts was the old tree she used to climb when she was a young child. Like the old, tired tree, there was no sense of sophistication or exquisite aesthetics inside the walls of Hogwarts castle, but the peculiar, somewhat indifferent sense of coziness generated by the solid stone walls and dark wooden floors took its place instead. Olympe always thought that she had an eye for beauty, a very well-trained one to be more exact, but the rough, majestic sort of charm that the Hogwarts exuded against the backdrop of the wilderness of Scotland was an unknown, new type of beauty. Although there was significant room for improvement as far as the cuisine of Hogwarts was concerned, Olympe was too deeply mesmerised by Hogwarts’ exotic charm to find fault in the food. It was the first time that Olympe was ever touched by something that was not pretty, sophisticated or elegant, but she found Hogwarts’ simple and honest aesthetics equally moving.

“So, I hear that you want to learn to play Gobstones?”

Olympe looked in the eyes of the petite witch who neither looked intimidated nor, even interested in her unusually tall stature, and nodded her head. In fact, she looked like she did not really care about Olympe’s existence.

“I heard you were the captain, Eileen Prince."

Olympe pulled just the one corner of her mouth upward to flash a grin at Eileen. It wasn’t something that Olympe did often, but Olympe knew how she would look when she grinned like this. As the corner of her mouth arch upwards, a dimple would appear on the ipsilateral cheek, and her pearl-white teeth will glow against her pleasantly tanned, olive skin. Olympe knew that people always praised her complexion, as her skin was smooth like silk, and how people who had fallen for her used to liken her sparkling, black eyes to gemstones. Above all, no-one, absolutely no-one has ever escaped from their fate of falling in love with Olympe Maxime, even if it just a little bit, when she goes hunting with this grin on her face, with her eyelashes fluttering like the wings of a butterfly.

“That is not an answer to my question.”

_What an unexpected response_ , Olympe remarked to herself and bit the tip of her tongue so as not to laugh to Eileen’s face, the first person ever to resist Olympe. Was my gaze not flirtatious enough, Olympe wondered silently, but the weapon she used successfully on countless accounts to attract suitors in the past could not suddenly lose its power. Yet, Eileen Prince truly seemed uninterested in Olympe, not even a little bit tempted.

Olympe looked closely at Eileen. Her hair, like every other day, looked brittle like dried straw. The shadowed, dark eyes reminded Olympe of a fallen, decaying ancient tree. In some regards, Prince was like Hogwarts that stood in the wilderness of Scotland for hundreds of years. Just as some found solace inside the cold, indifferent stone walls of Hogwarts, something behind the unattractive exterior of Eileen Prince beckoned Olympe to come closer.

“I know very little about Gobstones. So I thought that if I ask for your help, given that you are the captain of the Gobstones team and the president of the Gobstones club, I would be able to learn about Gobstones, and about some other things too.”

Olympe licked her dry lips with her tongue to moisten them, and smiled more calmly. Eileen watched Olympe with guarded, cautious eyes. Olympe met Eileen’s suspicious gaze obliquely and watched Eileen’s forearms exposed beneath her rolled-up sleeves. Even Eileen’s skin was different from Olympe’s. Without thinking, Olympe reached out her hand to run her fingers over Eileen’s wrist. Pale and dry, like dried leaves.

“Olimp Maxime, what are you doing?”

For the first time since Olympe ever laid her eyes on Eileen Prince, she saw an emotion other than boredom and disinterest emerge on Eileen’s face. It was rather satisfying to see that Olympe was the reason for this change, but soon, Olympe realised that those emotions were none other than shock and anger. Olympe swallowed a bitter laugh. 

“It’s Olympe, pronounced Ol-Lamp.”

Olympe quickly surrendered and apologised when she could see that Eileen was not impressed.

“I’m sorry Eileen, your skin looked like they were bitten by the cold weather. My little sister gets dry skin like that every winter and I’m used to checking it, so I automatically reached out without thinking.” 

It was a complete lie. Still, Olympe could see that the anger that burned in Eileen’s eyes were dying down with this explanation, and complimented herself on her quick thinking.

“If it is not too much of a trouble for you, would you like to try what I use? I have a nourishing ointment made from my family’s traditional recipe. Think of it as a token of gratitude for your tutoring me on Gobstones, and also as my apology for my rude behaviour.”

Eileen did not seem entirely convinced, but she did not refuse Olympe’s offer. Olympe hid her satisfied smile and listened attentively to Eileen’s explanations on the history and the basic rules of Gobstones, like an innocent, obedient lamb. Eileen took a full hour to give Olympe a lecture she asked for, despite still looking somewhat suspicious. Olympe had to try very hard to hide the fact that she was more interested in counting the number of freckles on Eileen’s cheeks, than how Gobstone evolved to the game it is now over the past whatever number of years.

“You may come back three days later if you want.”

Just as Olympe said her thank-you and turned around to walk away, she heard Eileen speak in a faint voice just over the shoulder. The voice was soft, but it was enough to stop Olympe and make her turn around again.

“Do you mean it?”

Despite trying everything she could and knew how to do, Olympe could not make Eileen smile in the last hour, not even once. Olympe hypothesised that this was because she had touched Eileen when her guards were still up. To compensate for that, Olympe tried to look as harmless and benign as possible. Olympe has always been a direct type of girl who would always go straight for what she wants. But this time, she tried her best to express her interest in Eileen in the most indirect ways she knew, like showing a smile then blushing and looking away as though she was shy, meeting the direct gaze for a just fraction of a second longer than what would feel comfortable to hint at Eileen that there is something more that she is seeking, all the passive lady-like things Olympe despised. As Eileen did not budge in her cool, suspicious, mask-like facial expression, Olympe was about to give up. That is, until Eileen gave her the invitation to return. 

“I never say anything if I don’t mean it.”

The words that were flowing out of Eileen’s stony lips felt surprisingly delicate to Olympe, like feathers. Olympe felt the soft flutter of butterflies inside her stomach. This discrepancy, this enigma that was Eileen Prince pleased Olympe. She could not hide the joy in her voice when she replied. In fact, she did not even try to do so.

“Then I’ll happily accept your offer.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


_\- to be continued..._


End file.
